Problems over problems have made life difficult for automakers and retailers. The major COVID-19 pandemic canceled business plans in early 2020, sent labor and suppliers into safe flight for a year, canceled semiconductor supply plans for two years, postponed car development and market launch programs, and led to mixed inventory plans. and across the industry uncertainty about how many vehicle factories can actually be expected.
And yet life goes on.
Through all this – no matter what – automakers have put a wave of products in showrooms since last fall. Significant products, most of them. High volume products, some of them. Electric cars, a lot of them. But looking forward to the products, everyone.
The first of its hot-awaited F-150 Lightning electric pickups is expected to hit Ford’s access roads this month.
The Hummer EV pickup from GMC, a truck consisting of one-piece performance and one-piece workhorse, hit the market this year. The first deliveries of the Cadillac Lyriq EV, which began limited production in March, are also expected this month.
Each of them represents not just an offer of a new product in a sea of ever-changing sheet metal, they represent feats of industrial determination – engineers who withstood COVID two years ago, purchasing managers who persuaded important new parts from unconscious suppliers, planners who planned with home offices and those who made deals somewhere in the system, who managed to buy enough scarce semiconductors to convince line managers that schedules are all systems.
Here are other recent market launches that have gone through the pipeline:
https://www.autonews.com/cars-concepts/breakthrough-cars-automakers-kept-delivering-despite-what-universe-threw-them
